A 7 year tradition of making cards still has gone unbroken with this years installment of Watier Productions Santa Card. I hope you all enjoy the art and please have a safe holiday.

Seasons Greetings.

Matt

Happy Holidays 2009 by *mattwatier on deviantART

I always love designs before they go to the higher ups.   Usually it means designs are cleaner more cutting edge and more marketing focused.   At this point designers have free reign over what it should look like and what it should sell.  The design process is slightly ignorant to the legal issues or information that needs to be supplemented that drags it more back toward center.   The greatest dream for designers right at this point is to “WOW”.  If the designer can make a statement the design will be a benchmark that will win confidence that the marketing is heading in the right direction.  If the designer and design win this crucial battle the client is  more comfortable to leave you with the freedoms you have started with and the gravity of “center” will not affect the project.   I proudly present the early designs for IBIS.

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As designers we are often faced with not enough of three elements, time, money, and or info.  Time can sometime be overcome with Redbull and coffee.  Money can be over come by just giving it away for free.  Info and or client direction can only be overcome by shooting things into the dark, or as my fellow designers say “throwing sh@#$t at the walls and seeing what sticks.”    Mark Center was an umbrella company who owns and operates multiple apartments outside DC and wanted to start branding the properties as one.  The old site was short throw from horrible and for some reason they liked the utilitarian quality of it.   All of us in the design shop thought  it was horrible and yet we weren’t given a lot of freedom to divorce from it.

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A bit of R&D and flash fun. A banner for a Washington DC Condo the Vista.

7085-13_cityvistabanner_expand1

I just wanted everyone to enjoy twitter for the first time.

So after what seems like for ever I can now place a link to where you can buy my book.  Please go and buy a copy.

http://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=53845

My second children's book is now for sale.

The Secret Magics of Maine

by Matt Watier

Playing in the shadowy mud of the forest, swimming in the cold Atlantic Ocean, and hiding under the wildflowers in the fields, children find magic throughout Maine. Share with your child the enchanting stories and mystical creatures in Watier’s The Secret Magics of Maine. This guide and its award winning illustrations will inspire your child’s imagination as they meet mythical creatures like Victoria, Queen of the Lobsters, Flarians children of the Sun, and the Arctic Frost Beast who is the cause of deep winter blizzards. Don’t miss a chance to share a magical moment with your child.

As coders we are lazy

I find now that meet more and more coders we are all driven by a very similar goal.  The main goal that fuels most coders is to be as lazy as possible. This doesn’t mean we don’t try or put effort in but if it came down to it coders in my experience will work smarter and not longer every day. I don’t know if it is just we want to get back to our video games, or beds but if there is a way we can do something cool without needing to continually update or type in every different element the better.

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I know I have said this before but I never thought I would get so much work for PowerPoint designs, templates, and production. I know most designers think PowerPoint is the worst thing since the first piece of sliced bread turned green and moldy.  I understand the horrible tools that come with PowerPoint but with a bit of effort and creative thinking you can make some really great presentations.

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In my process of learning how to skin Wordpress I have started to learn PHP. This is a series of post that will explain what I stumbled over as a non-coder so you don’t have to.

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